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Rural School Leaflet 



it sticks fast, and the spider pulls in the slack, making the line tight, 

 fastens it, and thus has a bridge along which it can pass at will. 



But the young spiders have a more wonderful way of traveling than this : 

 After one of these little creatures is large enough to get about, it climbs 

 to some elevated place, such as the tip of a grass blade, lifts the end of 

 its body, with the spinnerets high in the air, and spins out a thread which 

 the breeze catches and carries upward. When the thread is long enough 



Web of the grass spider 



to support the tiny spiderHng, it lets go its hold and sails off attached to 

 its silken balloon. Thus we see -young spiders are scattered far and wide, 

 as are dandelion seeds or milkweed seeds, carried by silken balloons; but 

 the spider's balloon is likely to be just one long thread. Often these threads 

 become attached to grass and weeds, and thus on autumn mornings, 

 when the spidcrlings are ballooning, the fields may be seen covered with 

 these threads of silk. 



3. Some spiders use silk to line their nests and to make tubes, within 

 which they live. In this way the trap door spider lines its burrow with 

 silk and carefully lines the hinges of its trapdoor with the same useful 

 material. 



